Question

I’m sure this is a basic question in Ruby:

Is there a way to check if

a == b

even if a is an integer and b is a string? I realize that I can do

a.to_s == b.to_s 

but I’d like to know if there’s some other, better way.

Answer 1

I’m not sure that I understand the question. If I do understand it, I think you’re trying to slip one by the interpreter:

telemachus ~ $ irb
irb(main):001:0> a = 1
=> 1
irb(main):002:0> b = '1'
=> "1"
irb(main):003:0> a == b
=> false

You can compare 1 and '1' all you like, but they aren’t equal according to the way Ruby handles strings and numbers. In a nutshell, Ruby ain’t Perl. (Edit: I should clarify. Clearly the number 1 is not the same thing as the string ‘1’. So it’s not really a question of how Ruby handles them. If you compare them directly, they’re just not the same. I just meant that Ruby doesn’t do automatic conversions the way that Perl would. Depending on what language you come from and your attitude towards typing, this will make you happy or suprised or annoyed or some combination of these.)